Gordon Fullerton, Space Shuttle Test Pilot, Dies at 76

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Gordon Fullerton, an Apollo-era NASA astronaut who was among the
first test pilots to fly the space shuttle, died on Wednesday
(Aug. 21), three years after suffering a stroke that left him
partially paralyzed. He was 76.

One of four astronauts who flew NASA's original prototype orbiter
on atmospheric test flights, Fullerton
launched into space twice. He piloted the shuttle program's
third mission in 1982 and, three years later, was commander when
an engine shutdown ended in the shuttle's only inflight abort.

Fullerton followed up his 382 hours in space with 22 years of
service as a NASA research pilot. Combined with his experience as
a test pilot in the U.S. Air Force, Fullerton logged a total of
more than 16,000 hours at the controls of more than 135 different
types of aircraft, including NASA's B-52 heavy-lift airborne
launch aircraft and the 747 Shuttle
Carrier Aircraft.

Born on Oct. 11, 1936 in Rochester, NY, Charles Gordon Fullerton
earned both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees
in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, in 1957 and l958, respectively. After
working briefly as a mechanical design engineer for Hughes
Aircraft Company, he entered the Air Force in July 1958.
[ In
Memoriam: NASA Remembers Astronauts Gordon Fullerton (Video
)]

First trained as an F-86 interceptor pilot, Fullerton became a
B-47 bomber pilot at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson,
Arizona. Fullerton was then selected to attend the Aerospace
Research Pilot School (now the Air Force Test Pilot School) at
Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in 1964. Upon graduation he was
assigned as a test pilot with the Bomber Operations Division at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.

It was Fullerton's test flight experience that led to his first
spaceflight assignment. The Air Force selected Fullerton in 1966
to train as a crew member for its Manned Orbiting Laboratory
(MOL) program.

Three years later, when the reconnaissance space station was
canceled before being launched, Fullerton transferred to NASA's
civilian astronaut corps, where he first served on the support
crews for the last four
Apollo lunar landing missions.

"I did the launch phase for Apollo [missions] 14, 15, and 16, and
then on 17 I handed over, and then I went down and was the guy
that closed the hatch [on the command module] for 17, the last
one, because I wanted to see a launch," Fullerton recounted in a
2002 NASA oral history. "So that kind of closed out the program."

Fullerton's first flight experience with the shuttle came as a
pilot for the Approach and Landing Test (ALT) program in 1977.
Paired with Apollo 13 pilot Fred Haise, Fullerton flew the
prototype
shuttle Enterprise for two captive and three free flights
from atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.

"We were doing stuff that there wasn't a procedure for,"
Fullerton said. "We were writing the procedure and then flying it
for the first time."

The flights on
Enterprise proved that a spacecraft could return to Earth as
an unpowered glider, an ability Fullerton would help demonstrate
on his first trip into space in a location that would be unique
throughout the shuttle's 30-year history.

Fullerton and commander Jack Lousma launched aboard the orbiter
Columbia on March 22, 1982, on the shuttle program's third test
flight. During the week-long mission, the two astronauts
conducted the first loaded tests of the Canadarm robot arm and
performed the first science flown aboard the shuttle.

The STS-3 mission also marked the first and only time a shuttle
landed at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Diverted
from the Edwards Air Force Base where heavy rains left the dry
lakebed too wet to support a safe touchdown, Lousma and Fullerton
landed Columbia on the desolate Northrop Strip (later White Sands
Space Harbor).

Lifting off on July 29, 1985, the STS-51F mission carried 13
experiments in the fields of astronomy, solar physics and
ionospheric, life and material science. Before any science could
be conducted however, Challenger first needed to make it safely
into space.

"We show a center engine failure," Fullerton reported five
minutes and 45 seconds into Challenger's ascent, nearly three
minutes before any cutoff was expected. By burning the shuttle's
two other engines longer, Challenger entered space but at a lower
altitude than had been planned. The mission proceeded though,
having conducted the first and only abort-to-orbit in the shuttle
program's history.

Challenger's landing marked the last time Fullerton would fly in
space, but far from his last flight for NASA.

A year after returning to Earth and in the wake of the
1986 loss of shuttle Challenger, Fullerton joined the
research pilot office at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility
in California. He became the project pilot on the NASA NB-52B
launch aircraft, flying the modified bomber on the first six air
launches of Orbital Sciences' Pegasus rocket, as well as flew the
development flights for NASA's X-38 crew recovery vehicle and
X-43A Hyper-X "scramjet" projects.

As a pilot for the DC-8 Airborne Science flying laboratory,
Fullerton was deployed worldwide supporting a variety of research
studies, including atmospheric physics, ground mapping and
meteorology. He was also pilot-in-command on the first test
flights of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy
(SOFIA), following the modifications to the Boeing 747 jumbo jet
to integrate the observatory's 2.5-meter infrared telescope.

Among Fullerton's other research assignments, he tested the drag
chute for the shuttle and served as the pilot-in-command of
NASA's
Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on numerous flights that ferried the
shuttles piggyback from California to the Kennedy Space Center in
Florida.

Fullerton retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1988. He
resigned from NASA in 2007.

For his nearly 50 years of service, Fullerton was honored with
numerous awards and medals, including the Air Force Distinguished
Flying Cross, NASA Distinguished Service and Exceptional Service
Medals, and both the Iven C. Kincheloe Award and the Ray E.
Tenhoff Award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots.